


Adverse Possession / Sprezzatura

by dorothy_notgale



Series: The More Loving One (Beyond Beyond Re-Animator) [5]
Category: Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: Dan's Closet Issues Loom In The Distance, Dirty Talk, Dominant Herbert, Facials, Herbert POV, M/M, Marking, Porn, Possessiveness, Pre-prison, Slurs, Submissive Dan, Unsafe Sex, poor communication kills, sad sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 22:47:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5309933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothy_notgale/pseuds/dorothy_notgale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“You look very nice, Danny,” Herbert says, peering around his bedroom door as Dan pads barefoot down the hall. Dan's wearing red—he always looks so good in red. Better, though, when it's smeared. Herbert's been reading at his desk for hours; if the car door hadn't slammed before midnight, he'd have known to lock up and turn out the lights, but it's barely gone ten now. “Did the date go well?”</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>All he wants is to own every part of Dan. All he'll ever get is... parts of Dan. It's a livable situation.</p><p>Mittens!Verse, but can be read solo. Pre-Prison. Filth, porn, possessiveness from Herbert’s POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adverse Possession / Sprezzatura

**Author's Note:**

> Sprezzatura [sprettsaˈtuːra] _An easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them... A form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance._

_Winter 1989_

“You look very nice, Danny,” Herbert says, peering around his bedroom door as Dan pads barefoot down the hall. Dan's wearing red—he always looks so good in red. Better, though, when it's smeared. Herbert's been reading at his desk for hours; if the car door hadn't slammed before midnight, he'd have known to lock up and turn out the lights, but it's barely gone ten now. “Did the date go well?”

“Leave me alone, Herbert.” Dan attempts to blow past in a cloud of irritation and allegedly sexy cologne. (Herbert prefers the biological to the artificial, but then, the scent was not applied for his benefit.)

“Did you have sex?” He insinuates himself into Dan's sphere, knowing he won't be barrelled over just yet. Dan is touchy about touching.

“Fuck off.” _Indeed_ ; that's the plan.

“So you'll _want_ sex, then.”

“Not from you,” Dan says, making as though to continue on towards his room.

“Oh, you've suddenly become particular as to where you get your jollies?” Waspish drawls are not known for their appeal, but what is one to do as he's passed by? And how foolish _was_ the woman to send Dan off like this when she could have kept him all night? Not that Herbert's complaining, of course. Far from it. “How times do change.”

“Stop it.”

“All right. After this.” He reels Dan in by his throat-baring open collar and steals an unpleasantly berry-flavored kiss; someone's sticky lipgloss clings and smears in an unwanted reminder of how few pieces of the man he needs actually belong to him. He burns with the need to wipe away those traces, has to try to be good enough to hold on to _this_ piece for _this_ moment. “Goodnight, Daniel.”

He knows he's won for now when Dan clasps his upper arms, preventing the promised withdrawal. Dan backs them through the portal, into Herbert's bedroom—the better to leave after.

 _Not_ complaining.

“Changed your mind, hmm?”

Dan says nothing, eyes shadowed; he is prone to stalling after small bursts of effort, and needs regular prodding in this as in all things worth doing.

“It's all right,” Herbert soothes, taking his hand for a brief less-explicit contact prior to the main event. “I'll take care of you.”

He draws Dan further in, maneuvering him to stand by the desk while Herbert sits in the rolling swivel chair.

“Why do you do this?”

The questions Dan asks are so strange, sometimes—so absurd. One would think he had neither eyes, nor mirror, nor memory.

“Why shouldn't I?” Herbert projects airy unconcern, smoothing touches over the familiar territory (not his, not _owned_ ) of hip and thigh and stirring waking _cock_. “You're getting what you need, aren't you? Now, behave yourself and let me work.”

“I'm not a child, Herbert.”

“And thank goodness for that.” He looks sourly over the frames of his glasses. “Please stop interrupting, or I may have to find some task to occupy your mouth.”

“Like what?” Shallow breathing; _ah, darling, how utterly predictable your unwanted wants_.

He knows what Dan's thinking—practically inviting—but as impressive as the dear man's oral skills are, the key to holding his interest in this is keeping him off-balance. So while Dan prepares to kneel, Herbert twists his face into a knowing smirk.

“Talk to me, Daniel.”

“What?” There's the intrigue, the almost fearful flicker that means he’s hooked. And this is as good an opportunity as any to learn more.

“Tell me what you want.” He rubs his cheek against hardening flesh through too-tight-for-work denim, gropes a buttock while he's at it. “I'd like to hear you say it.”

“I thought you wanted me to shut up.”

Honestly, it's like pulling teeth—and his ambition was never to be a DMD. He huffs and straightens his shoulders, stretches up towards Dan's bowed head.

“I want you to _focus_ , rather than being distracted by inanities.” He turns crude, thrusting a hand into Dan’s crotch and squeezing. “I have no objection to hearing your voice while I enjoy you. Now, what. Would you like. Me to _do_?”

Dan's jaw clenches in petty defiance.

“Or must I guess? Do you want me to start at your fingertips and lick my way up to your neck, kiss your throat slowly, perhaps leave a little love bite…”

Dan shakes his head violently, as Herbert knew he would. He loves being bitten, but _hates_ being marked by Herbert if there's any risk of it being seen. He wears his tramps' hickies like badges of honor, of course.

Just for that, he's getting one.

While Dan chews over the situation, Herbert unzips him and draws forth the heavy penis. Lovely. At least some part of him is on board with the proceedings—and how. He holds it for a moment, rubs his thumb in beading pre-ejaculate, enjoying the pure masculine warmth of it all.

It's so alive, pulsing gently like a heart in his palm.

“Y- _your_ mouth,” Dan, ever reticent when it comes to pleasurable things, finally manages.

“What about it?” Positive reinforcement is important; he begins a soft, rhythmic stroking, not enough to do more than feel _good_.

“It's—God, you're a perfect cocksucker.” It's unclear whether Dan intends that as a slur or a compliment. “Blow me.”

“Such a sweet talker, Dan.” He rolls his chair in, though, and pulls jeans and boxers down. Dan’s braced wrists fit beautifully in Herbert’s hands, making it so easy to formally immobilize him against the edge of the desk. Just before Herbert bends his neck to reward the candor, he adds, “Keep going.”

“Oh—oh, God, yeah. Th-the tip—too much—”

Herbert adores how real this is. No obfuscation, no denial, just the intense, living confirmation of Dan's body inside his mouth. Dan can be embarrassed after the sex, distance himself from the affection, dislike Herbert as a poor excuse for a human being, but this—there's nothing closer than this. No way to feel him more deeply than when flesh hardens towards climax against his tongue.

He lives in fear of the day when he does this and tastes something foreign, unwashed _proof_ that someone beat him to it, this property that is not his. He believes he will react poorly.

He dreads what he might do in that state, to try and keep it.

“I want to touch you.” The whisper is faint, husky and remote but nevertheless musical to hear. Wind from a cave. He considers for a moment the pros and cons of the request: touching and active participation are good, but he'd rather not be overwhelmed this early.

“Just one hand? Please?” Well, _manners_. That's different, and to be encouraged. He releases the left, using the opportunity to get a good grip on Dan's rear.

Dan plays fair, surprisingly, allowing Herbert to set what he knows to be a torturously slow pace without complaint or pushiness. His hand migrates from Herbert's head to the back of his neck, fingers curling to rest over the carotid.

Life connects them. When Herbert succeeds, that connection will be the only reason for anyone to need to do these things. With procreation removed from the equation… maybe, in a couple of centuries, this will be 'normal' enough for even Dan's tastes.

Maybe by then Herbert will have figured out how to keep Dan happy.

He groans around the obstruction, slurps vulgarly.

“You like that, West?” As though there's any uncertainty. He makes more noise in the affirmative and wishes he had a hand to spare for himself. His erection is becoming painful.

“God, you act like a slut,” Dan rasps. “But you're not, are you? You're not even...” He crushes Herbert's collar in reaction to some tonguework of which Herbert's particularly proud.

“You'd let me do anything I want, wouldn't you?” Obviousness. _Now_ it becomes tiresome; Herbert backs off none-too-gently, allowing his teeth to graze skin all the way up and expelling a little drool over his lips for effect.

When he raises his head, expression sulky and mouth slack, Dan's hand glides around to grip his throat with an almost uncomfortable pressure. He's not restricting breath or blood, merely implying such a course of action. Suggesting a route to the void.

“What if I hurt you?” Dan whispers. His eyes show white all around, Border Collie terror.

There's no need to distress him by laughing at the question. Dan remains so willfully ignorant of the pain he causes on a daily basis, as well as of the fact that pain is a necessary condition of life, that Herbert hates to disabuse him of his illusions.

“Do you _want_ to hurt me?” he asks instead, forcing his neck to remain loose and relaxed in his friend's tender grasp. He frees Dan's other hand; it circles around, linking into a necklace of phalanges. “Or are you just frustrated?”

In the silence that follows, he reaches out again to toy with Dan. His own saliva cools rapidly in the air as he stirs each spot most sensitive, slipping one hand lower to cradle testicles and palpate perineum.

“I think you need to talk more,” he continues. “That was pleasant, but it's not all you want, is it, Daniel?”

Dan's face contorts in a lovely agony of unfulfilled lust. Teasing may seem cruel, but it's so often the only stimulus to get a proper reaction.

“Tell the truth. You want me to _fuck_ you, don't you?” Dan's shiver at the profanity is endearing. “That's what you really want to ask for.”

“...Yes.” Poor thing. So embarrassed. Herbert smirks deeper, breathes on the tip of the engorged member. He can feel his pulse throbbing against those soft, threatening, perfectly safe hands.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, Herbert, I want to be fucked.” Oh, that _is_ exquisite—blood backlighting his cheeks, face downcast under waves of dark hair. His nipples are visible under the sweaty shirt whose color he's rapidly approaching. Only one thing could improve it:

“By _me_.”

“By you, you son of—aaahh!” With the intimate invasion of two of Herbert's fingers, Dan's hands fall leaflike to rest on his shoulders.

“Mmm, Daniel, all you had to do was ask.” He stands, revolves Dan to bend over their desk, and strips him of the jeans and the Date Shirt (still stinking of Drakkar Noir). “All you ever have to do is ask, sweetheart.”

Pants open, he snugs himself up to Dan's backside. A quick caress of his chest, abdomen, and the trail of hair that traverses his lower torso seems justified; a too-hard pinch to the nipples garners a yelp. He occupies himself oversensitizing them with his left hand while opening and slicking Dan with his right.

He has no right to resent Dan's excursions, he tells himself. He's not what Dan wants, prefers, or wants to prefer, and Dan has always made that absolutely clear. No promises bind him.

And in a universe absent fate, he cannot pretend to believe Dan was made for him, regardless of how slim the chances were that he'd ever find a match so nearly perfect. A rebel mind, healing hands, workhorse ethic, and (not insignificantly) the face and body of an Adonis...

So close. So far.

“Say when, love.” He grips a high shoulder and rubs his organ just against Dan's entrance.

Dan whines.

“Come on, now. I thought you wanted it.”

They hang on the cusp so long that he begins to worry before Dan simply rolls his spine and pushes _back_ , subverting the game in its entirety.

Cute, admittedly. And certainly consent. He thrusts the rest of the way into that welcoming heat.

True, his own ideal design would have certain minor alterations, but he won't visit them on Dan's physique. To change any small part might damage the behavior of the whole organism, and though Herbert is by nature a reckless man, risking something so precious is beyond even him. Besides, as sweet as he may find the idea of replacing Dan's heart with one that feels what Herbert wants it to, he knows it's mere fantasy. No heart will ever feel that way for him.

Though at the start he had hoped. Dan had used to seem enamored, smiling and shy, before circumstances went to Hell and took the scales from his eyes along for the ride.

Damn Megan anyway, for dying and becoming perfect _in memoriam_. He imagines, sometimes, that he could have won, if not for that. He pictures them coming together in some other way, in laughing triumph, from a mutual interest rather than Dan's grief and celibacy. But they're older now, and Herbert less naive; he no longer thinks that offhand availability and enforced closeness will turn the man’s head. Dan's such an affectionate creature that if it were in him to love Herbert at all, he long ago would have.

“What do you want, Danny?” His presence and his indulgence are not as much as Herbert wants, but they are more than is necessary. The least Herbert can do is give him back the very best of which he’s capable. “Tell me how to make it good for you.”

“Bite me—oh, _Christ!_ ”

He doesn't wait or ask for confirmation, in case he doesn't get it. The flesh of Dan's shoulder is thick between his teeth, and he sucks as he clenches it, ensuring a vivid bloody bloom without ever breaking the skin. It's a poor thing to act on another's likely-regretted impulse, but no one's ever said he's a good person.

“Good boy, Danny. So sweet. _Mine_.” That last fiction just for himself. He tongues the bruise delicately, admiring the impressed texture of his own teeth and the warmth beneath the lacey rouged pattern of ruptured capillaries. “Is this right?”

“Harder.” Dan’s voice edges up the register as it does when he's panicked or desperate. “F-fuck me hard.”

“Like this?”

Sometimes he does imagine fixing it all, the flaw between them. Reaching in, touching all the damaged parts of Dan that no other will ever see or feel. It's happened before, when he was too sick with panic to enjoy it—the incredible intimacy of being wrist-deep in his only one stirred him then as the echo does now, and he fingers the scar on Dan's belly in remembrance. Mortality is hideous, but its defeat is ever so wonderful.

Dan tells _them_ it's from an appendectomy. True enough; it had come out, along with a foot of bowel, while he was repairing the damage. The remains proved essential to Herbert's work on parts.

Keeping them might seem sentimental, but still. Waste not, want not.

“Put your hands on my hips and just—uh!” The pelvis, the curve of muscle, sculpted handholds. If he didn't know better, he'd believe this body was made for this.

“Your back looks so pretty with my bite on it, Daniel.”

“Shut up. I just want you to come in me.”

_Unfair—how can he possibly keep his composure when Dan's saying such things?_

“I can guarantee you'll get that, but what about you? You're sure you don't want me to touch—”

“Dig your fingers in. Scratch me.”

Again, he doesn't hesitate before scoring raised pink trails over waist, thighs, pelvic girdle, thumbs clawing either side of the lumbar spine in the opposite of massage. No soothing here. “Whatever you ask for, you'll get it. Can you feel how—”

“Come for me.”

“For you and only you, Daniel.” His brands are parallel, set down in angular mirrored designs that represent the union of their bodies' healthy symmetry. They should be documented, photographed, his procedures laid out for posterity's edification. “But who do _you_ mean?”

“Huh?”

“Wh-who's giving you what you need, pet?” He sinks his teeth into the other shoulder to complete the picture.

“Ahh! You are. You always do.”

“Always?” He grimace-smiles at the ragged kindness, so close to achieving his own finish. “F-flatterer. Say my name.”

“Mmmf.”

“Say my name, Daniel. Say it, and you can have whatever—”

“ _Herbert!_ ”

That. _That_ is what he needed. His vision reds out, and this time his nails likely draw blood as he complies with Dan's previously expressed wish.

Daniel will be fully clothed for over a week, this time. The bites, the scratches, the unmistakable storytelling handprints below the waist—he'd better remember asking for them. He can't possibly be annoyed by Herbert's impact on his extracurricular sex life if he's the one who requested it, can he?

 _(Of course he_ can _and_ will _, but there's no sense in complaining.)_

Disengaging and putting himself back into his pants buys a little time for composure, though his heart will race for the rest of the night and beyond at the memory of that cry. He pets Dan's soft hair before turning him back around. Dan knows him well enough to read the question in his raised eyebrows; sweet, sweet man. When he speaks, his voice has gone low and scratchy and everything Herbert's ever wanted to hear. Though the words...

“I want to come on you.”

“You mean...” Herbert makes an awkward-feeling back-and-forth gesture between Dan's crotch and his own face.

“Yes.”

“That's all?” What _has_ gotten into his friend tonight? _(Besides the obvious, of course.)_

“Yes, Herbert,” Dan rolls his eyes, sounding distinctly put out. “That's _all_.” Well. Wonders will never cease.

“How very pornographic of you.”

“You said whatever—”

“That wasn't a refusal. By all means...” He settles back in the chair and beckons, hoping he's recaptured some of the ease lost with that last motion. “…Mark your territory.” He's glad Dan doesn't care to ask why he's been viewing pornography; making difficult things appear effortless is essential to projecting control, after all.

“Open your shirt.”

“All right.” Self-gratification as performance is new, and Herbert does love a show. He folds his tie, stows it carefully in his pocket, unbuttons, untucks, and spreads creased cotton to expose his chest.

Dan's a glorious sight—chest heaving, furiously erect, spread-legged with Herbert's leavings dripping down his hairy red-scribed thighs. His hand slides and dances, twisting in a move Herbert is pleased to recognize as one of his own favorite enticements. He keeps his gaze low, drinking in the action, until Dan starts gasping. Then he hooks a foot around one of Dan's ankles, cranes his neck, and stares him dead in the face.

“You're supposed to be talking to me.”

“Ungh.” Delicious panic flares in those eyes at the stern demand for coherency in extremis.

“Daniel.”

“C-can't—”

“Speak.”

“Jesus, _Herbert!_ ”

Herbert's face, glasses, and chest all get generously striped with Dan's hot semen. He smiles wide and flicks his tongue out to catch a taste.

“Good, Danny.” Pulling his tie out, he 'accidentally' trails it through the congealing mess before using it to wipe sweat from Dan's brow and upper lip. The smell hangs in the air, richly overpowering, when he stands and takes another kiss. Dan’s weak knees, his slump, make them of a height. “Feel better?”

Dan whimpers, low and alluring. So close to perfect—not falling short, but exceeding it. Really, if the universe were arbited rather than arbitrary, Herbert wouldn't deserve this.

For a moment, he imagines wearing the spatter out like Dan's cologne, a trophy more aggressively blatant and intensely personal than any old shirt. But Dan would never stand for that; worse, he wouldn't acknowledge the claim. For him, it _is_ no claim. He doesn't feel as Herbert does. He'll give his mind, his toil, his strength, his support, his calming homey presence, his vital blood and sweat and other fluids, but not... what he can't. Not _all_.

And to be fair, Herbert suspects that despite all the things he himself feels, they don't amount to love. If they were, he'd be able to let all of Dan go—let him find someone or something that would make him happy. Love (he's been given to understand) is wishing the best for another, and even Herbert can't delude himself that that's what he has to offer. So instead he pats Dan's cheek, summons a look of smug satisfaction, and backs towards his bed as his nearly-love wobbles weak-kneed by the desk.

“By the way, Dan, it's your turn to take the dry cleaning in.”

He knows from the shudder that he'll never see his soiled tie again. Into the incinerator it will go, biohazardous and secret as Dan considers everything else about their assignations.

Ah, well. That's life. Necessary conditions, and all that.

 


End file.
